There is widely used in portable electronic devices such as laptop personal computers and cellular phones a structure in which an upper housing provided with a display screen is connected to a lower housing provided with a keyboard or push buttons so as to be openable and closable. Such an electronic device enables a user to carry the device folded such that the lower housing and upper housing are superposed, and in operation, the user can open the upper housing to use the keyboard or push buttons. In this way, portability of the electronic device is improved without miniaturizing the keyboard, push buttons or the like.
Recently, not only cellular phones but also laptop personal computers are equipped with communication function or photographing function, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-136912. A personal computer equipped with communication function or photographing function often has an electronic component such as an antenna or camera attached beside the display screen in the upper housing, where information obtained by the electronic component is transmitted through signal lines to a control circuit in the lower housing.
Here, in the upper housing and lower housing are deployed many electronic components such as the above-described camera or antenna, a display panel, the keyboard and the control circuit, where such electronic components are connected by signal lines. Generally, grooves for the signal lines are provided in the housings and the signal lines are disposed in the grooves. However, signal lines merely disposed in the grooves would easily get out of the grooves and, as a result, when assembling the electronic device, the signal lines would possibly interfere with installation of other electronic components or be pulled out of an electronic component.
As a method for solving this problem, signal lines disposed in the grooves are sometimes fixed therein with tapes.
However, the method of disposing signal lines in the grooves and further applying tapes to the signal lines increases the number of assembly steps associated with the electronic device as well as increases the manufacturing cost. There is also a problem that, when repairing the electronic device, the repairer needs to peel off the tapes before extracting the signal lines and apply the tapes again after the repair is finished, which makes the work very troublesome for the repairer. Further, the temperature in the electronic device can be high due to the heat generated by the electronic components; this environment accelerates deterioration of the tapes with aging, and in a relatively short time the tapes peel off easily and do not serve the function of maintaining the fixation of the signal lines. Particularly, in the case of a portable electronic device, the tapes peel off more easily due to vibrations caused by carrying the electronic device.
These problems arise not only in personal computers and cellular phones but generally in electronic devices wired with signal lines in the housings.